How can Labour deliver on its pledge to halve violence against women and girls?

In his pitch to voters in March last year, Keir Starmer said he wanted to “imagine a society where violence against women is stamped out everywhere”. His government would, he pledged, halve violence against women and girls in a decade. It was a bold, simple statement, widely welcomed for its ambition.That something has to change is not in doubt. The first national analysis of the scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) released in July by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) estimated that 2 million women were victims of male violence every year – an epidemic so serious it amounts to a “national emergency”

Welcome to the club: why are private members’ clubs booming?

Whether it’s an exclusive establishment with a years-long waiting list or a working men’s club at the heart of its community, there’s nothing like a sense of belonging. And when times are tough, memberships go upWhen Michelle Fisher got involved with running the Walthamstow Trades Hall, a social club in north-east London, something surprised her: how excited new recruits get about their membership pack. It’s nothing special – a faux-leather wallet containing a membership card and a fob for the door – but time and again, people kept asking: “Is my wallet ready yet?” Fisher laughs recounting this. “People just want to be part of something,” she says. “Especially when everything else is a bit difficult and stressful

Two-thirds of UK benefits claimants with debts ‘have gone without food’

Two-thirds of benefits claimants with debts have been unable to buy food, according to a damning official report that Labour says was suppressed by the previous government.The report by the Department for Work and Pensions said some people had been driven into debt because they had not been able to access benefits, and 81% of universal credit claimants in debt ran out of money before their next payment “always” or “most of the time”.It also found that UC claimants with debts were less likely to be able to find work or a better paid job because they could not afford to travel. Some feared being locked forever in financial instability.One in five owed at least £10,000

Pressure mounts on Rachel Reeves to drop ‘dangerous’ £1.3bn cut to benefits for disabled

Rachel Reeves is coming under intense pressure to use the budget to abandon a £1.3bn cut to benefits for people with disabilities, first announced by the Tory government, amid warnings it will lead to hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people losing almost £5,000 a year.The leading independent thinktank, the Resolution Foundation, has called on the chancellor to drop or delay changes to the work capability assessment (WCA), arguing that key aspects of the policy have not been thought through, and that around 420,000 people who are unable to work through disability or ill-health could lose up to £4,900 a year.The controversy is another headache for the government, particularly as the savings from the Tory-conceived plan are already baked into the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts for the public finances that will underpin the budget on 30 October.This latest dispute over benefits cuts follows outcries over the government’s plan to limit winter fuel payments to only the poorest pensioners, and its refusal to end the two-child benefit cap that is being blamed for tipping many thousands more children into poverty every month

UK’s top Catholic bishop urges faithful to lobby MPs to oppose assisted dying

The UK’s highest-ranking Catholic bishop has urged churchgoers to lobby their MPs to oppose proposed changes in the law around assisted dying in England and Wales, warning people: “be careful what you wish for”.In a letter to be read out in the churches of his diocese, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said the proposed changes risk bringing about “a slow change from a duty to care to a duty to kill” for medical professionals.The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater will formally introduce a private member’s bill on the issue to the House of Commons on Wednesday. MPs will vote on the issue at the bill’s second reading on 29 November.Nichols’s letter goes on to say that in countries where assisted dying has been legalised, the circumstances in which it is permitted have been “widened and widened”

Plans for digital NHS tag for overseas patients cause migrant privacy concerns

Plans to create a new digital tag for the records of NHS patients from overseas has caused concern among doctors, as well as privacy and migrants’ rights campaigners.A new data category called Overseas Visitor Charging would be created in national NHS records under proposals the Labour government has inherited from its Conservative predecessor.Sunday was the deadline for responses to an NHS England consultation on the proposals, which would enable the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to see more information about how often hospitals are charging migrants for accessing services.However, the plans will also present a test of the Labour government’s approach to the sharing of migrants’ NHS data, which had been at the centre of controversies under the Tories when it came to concerns about privacy rights and the expansion of the “hostile environment”.Anna Miller, head of policy and advocacy at Doctors of the World, which runs clinics for undocumented migrants, victims of trafficking and asylum seekers, said: “Major data-sharing arrangements like this one make it very difficult for us to reassure patients that hospitals are safe places and that patient confidentiality will be respected